NAATE's mission is to develop, leverage, and retain our nation's top-tier educators for improved student and school performance through an intense, advanced program of study that balances instructional mastery and leadership.

Despite the centrality of quality teaching in the panoply of solutions to improve U.S. schools, too often great teachers are untapped or neglected. Individually, they possess a reservoir of potential that, to the detriment of all – from student up to district level – is not developed or leveraged. If properly trained, teachers at the departmental or grade level have the potential to execute much more effective group work and teaming, yielding far better performance and increased productivity. With better training of high-performing teachers, organizations could leverage their existing talent, retain the best teachers in school buildings, and build a sustainable pool for future formal leadership roles.

In 2009, such specialized training did not exist for high caliber teachers. NAATE was founded because we see teachers as the single most important resource in the whole equation. NAATE believes it is strategic to invest in top tier teachers, nurture them, deepen their classroom practice, and develop their skills to support and lead peers. Already high-performing teachers need to continuously work on their own classroom mastery. They also need to develop the skills to transfer their knowledge and support peers, struggling teachers and newer teachers. By making such investments, school leadership would have the capacity, talent and resources to sustain high performance in teaching as well as improve recruitment, onboarding, training, coaching, mentoring, and professional development.

[NAATE]'s creating this career platform and people are realizing their career potential. NAATE has been a very solid investment for us. We're not just cultivating great teachers, but the next generation of leaders in our organization"

– Dylan GruverDirector of HRFriendship Public Charter Schools

I have earned a Master's degree, National Board Certification, and attended countless workshops in and out of my school system. None of these programs has come close to impacting my teaching and my students' learning and development in the ways that the NAATE program has ... the community of teachers who participated in the NAATE program has been an invaluable resource throughout the year to continue learning and collaborating."

I can only describe this endeavor as the most rigorous, invigorating, applicable, and transformational experience of my career. The impact has been directly evident in my classroom practice as well as my engagement as a teacher leader in the community."

– Nationally Board Certified Middle School ELA Teacher Leader

I can't imagine anything changing my career as an educator quite as much as the [NAATE Program]... After my experiences with NAATE, I came home with fresh research-based approaches that reached my students on completely different levels... Not only did each student in my class exceed their own predicted scores, they all showed a high level of growth."